Reading Beyond a Headline or Title

As a journalist, I am accustomed to receiving angry mail and such after an article is published. Another thing I’m accustomed to is how often the mail comes from people who have not read the article. What people often do is look at the headline or title and react. Or perhaps they skim the opening lines or a paragraph or two. I suspect this is what happened to poor Professor Bruce Gilley with his “The Case for Colonialism.” I’m a bit late with this, but I finally got around to reading it and am linking it here. If you read the whole thing, you will see there is nothing remotely racist/insensitive/every-other-name-you-can-imagine to be found about it. You might not agree with it all (or at all), but you’d be hard-pressed after reading it to understand the madness that followed its publication.